Discovered
by Dreaming-Of-A-Nightmare
Summary: Takes place where last night's season finale left off; Debra goes to confess her feelings but finds Dexter caught in the act of taking care of Travis Marshall. .:. drabble.


Just as I finally run Travis through with his own blade, the satisfaction of having caught him and made him pay for all he's done coursing through my veins, I freeze in time, body tense and cold and heavy, because that's when I see Deb standing there.

I feel like a idiot more than anything else; I should have foreseen this, should have known that there could be the possibility of her checking up on me in the church, since she's the one who asked me to do a final forensic sweep here tonight. But I wasn't thinking clearly; having Harrison's life endangered and finally having Travis in my grasp made me forget.

She looks nauseous and confused, and I don't blame her. She's the last person I ever wanted to see me like this, because she's the only person I wouldn't kill to keep the secret.

And in this moment, I have no idea what she will do, and I can't very well stop her.

I approach her slowly, hands raised to show that I won't hurt her. "Now, Deb…"

"Marshall didn't get away, you – you _kidnapped _him," she sputters, staring mostly at the sword still embedded in Travis' chest cavity, her eyes wide with horror. I never wanted to see that look on her face, the look that clearly shows that she knows that I carry a dark passenger within me, that I'm, in truth, a monster like the ones we hunt down. "Now it makes sense, why you went missing the night of the Lake of Fire, and why the painting of it had its face smashed in; you did it, didn't you? Because you were the one he tried to murder!"

She's frantic and jumpy and on a ramble, but she's absolutely correct. Sometimes I don't give Deb enough credit; she can be just as quick on the intake as me at times, just as clever in puzzling things out.

"Deb, please – you have to understand, he – he was going to kill Harrison," I say, trying to make it seem like it was self-defense, or a more just killing. I know better, but I'm hoping that she doesn't. "Harrison was going to be the lamb. If I hadn't found him, hadn't stopped him –"

She almost laughs, but it's more hysteric than anything else. "Oh, and how did you do that, by the way, Dexter? How, unless… unless you do this all the fucking time? Track killers without me knowing a goddamn thing, and fucking cutting them up into tiny bits?" She's crying, now. Tears are streaming down her face in multiple tracks, dropping off her chin and dotting her shirt collar. She doesn't even bother to wipe them away with her hand. She shrinks back, ever-staring. In a small, quiet voice, she adds, "Fuck. And here I came to tell you how I really feel, came to –" but she cuts herself off, shaking her head. "What am I going to do?"

As a police officer, as a _lieutenant, _she has to take me in. There's no other way. I'm a murderer, even if I'm the killer of a killer. And I don't know if she heard me saying that I am a father, a son, and a serial killer, because if she had, then she'll know that I am guilty of more bodies than Travis'.

But then, on the other hand… as the person I grew up with knowing as my sister, she might cover for me. She might keep quiet because she cares about me.

I don't know which alternative frightens me more. Because while I don't want to get caught and having to stop doing what I do and like best, and while I would hate to be in prison my whole life and miss raising Harrison and watching him grow up, I realize the injustice there is in her keeping me a secret. It's almost as bad as the things I murder for.

Her eyes finally connect with mine, and I can't tell what she's seeing. Her jaw is slack and she's breaking out into a sweat, and the tears are still flowing along her cheeks. "Dexter… protecting Harrison or not, how the fuck could you…?"

"He had to die, Deb," I tell her in my usual serious tone, but I try to soften it so not to scare her into doing something I won't like. "You know that. He had to pay for all the innocent people he killed."

"But killing him _yourself _– God, that's no better than stooping to his fucking _level_! That makes you just like him, even if your reasoning is slightly better than his!" she cries out, and she chokes on a sob as she sits down on an old pew. She puts her face in her hands, the tension of the situation and the uncertainty of what she should do weighing down on her thin shoulders. "I can't report this," she says. "I must be bat-shit insane, but… I can't report this."

I blink once or twice, staring at her. Cautiously, I venture, "Why not?"

She looks up, and there's something different in her eyes. "Because, Dexter. Goddamn it, don't you get it? I-I wanted to see you, talk to you – tell you that, that I actually fucking –!" She looks conflicted. She wipes her tears in frustration and looks down, almost ashamed, but not quite. "I wanted to make you understand that I l-love you, and not just – not just like my brother, because you're _not _my brother, not by relation, and I've always – always compared men to you, because no one _was _you, and f-fuck…" Deb struggles, and suddenly, everything makes an odd sort of sense, and I feel a little sick inside, but I'm not entirely sure why.

Perhaps it's because I'm realizing that Debra is just as messed up as I am, but in a different way. And I hate to think that, hate to see that, because I had hoped she was like everyone else and I was the only one who was off his rocker, but it's here and happening and I can't ignore it.

"Debra…" I say as gently as I'm able, and I pull off one of my gloves to reach out toward her.

I don't know what I expected. I thought maybe she would pull away, flinch backward, maybe even run. I hoped she wouldn't, but I thought that any sane person would do any of the above.

Except she doesn't. Instead, Debra lets me comfort her. She even holds me, burying her face in my rubber-covered clothes and sobbing. And the fact that there is a freshly dead body in the room and mixed emotions in the air and confusion and confliction and blurring morality between us and the fact that she's taking all this in and not doing the right thing only makes this all the more real and upsetting and wrong.

I stroke her hair and wait for her tears to vanish. When she pulls away, she's back to her normal self, but it feels different. She isn't the same old Deb anymore.

"Come on. We need to dispose of him and clean this place up before anyone finds out. I'll help you. And then I'm going to go home, drink my ass off, and forget this every fucking happened, if I can," Deb says through her stuffed nose in what sounds mostly like her normal tone.

And that's what scares me. And nothing ever scares me (unless it concerns Harrison's safety). I keep my eyes on her the entire time as we clean up. She doesn't say a word. She's numbed, I think, and maybe trying to keep her dinner down. She doesn't look at me, only looks where her hands are moving. And she seems… gone.

I've corrupted her. I know I have. And I'm more disappointed in myself for getting caught than I am in her for going along with it.

And I can't help thinking that this is the start something very, very dangerous indeed.


End file.
